F1 set to ride a rocky financial road

With F1 about to be floated on Singapore's stock exchange, Dieter Rencken looks at the championship's financial history, and flags up some potential pitfalls

For perfect proof of just how badly served Formula 1 was by the Max Mosley-era FIA, look no further than the sale of 21 per cent of its shareholding earlier this week by the sport's commercial rights holder for a whopping $1.6billion (£1.1billion), bestowing upon the commercial rights of the sport a notional value of $9.1billion (£6billion) after factoring in the outstanding loan value of approximately £900million.

To place that into perspective, consider that around 15 years ago, at the height of the Mosley administration, the FIA and thus the de facto owner of F1 – whether current majority lease-holder of said commercial property, CVC Capital Partners, likes it or not – began a process that resulted in the 113-year rights to the sport being sold to an entity controlled by F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone for just $380million (£250million), including a short-lived (13-year) annual levy paid to the FIA to administer the series.